My maid’s husband

Mornings were even tougher when the maid didn’t turn up. Lakshmi was a nice person and always went out of her way to help Anita. She never refused to do anything, quite unlike most of the maids employed by her friends and neighbours. When they had moved into this beautiful bungalow in Pratap Ganj, in the eastern suburbs of the city, she had felt elated. The apartment blocks would no longer stifle her. No doubt to it, she hated living in apartments.

But then Lakshmi had her own share of problems – her drunkard and abusive husband. He would return home late most of the days just managing to keep himself steady and would beat her up for flimsy reasons. Whenever the thrashing got too hard she had to stay away from work for a day or two. Anita pitied Lakshmi. Why did she stay with him? At times she tried to imagine an abusive Amit. If anything like that ever happened she would, surely, walk out. It was not a question of how much it hurt physically; it would be an intolerable insult on self-esteem. Then she would laugh at her idea of an abusive Amit…after all they had been college sweethearts and knew each other so well.
Whenever Anita expressed her opinion to Lakshmi, she laughed patiently.